The Rich Roll Podcast - Stop Staring At The Scale & Turn The Gaze Inward — The Emotional Drivers Behind Diet & Behavior (Plus: Tales From Das Plantpower Kochbuch German Book Tour)

Episode Date: October 22, 2015

On a rainy night from a little boutique hotel in the Montmartre district of Paris after a whirlwind book tour in Germany last week, I'm filled with gratitude to bring you another installment of Ask Me Anything — a twist on my normal format where Julie and I discuss issues currently on the brain and answer listener submitted questions. This week's topics include: * tales from Das Plantpower Kochbuch German book tour * the Berlin vegan scene * shopping at the world's first all vegan supermarket * hanging out with vegan strong man Patrik Baboumian * plant-based in Paris * vegan birthday at L'Arpège, the #12 best restaurant on Earth * why you should stop “dieting” * addressing the emotional drivers behind diet & behavior habits * plant-based on the road — tips and tools The show concludes with Aditya, an ancient Sanskrit mantra performed by Julie — aka SriMati – musically accompanied by our sons Tyler & Trapper Piatt. A mantra intended to imbue our lives with vibrant health, the lyrics (very) loosely translated from the root Sankskrit go something like this: Om to the solar universal energy / Protect me from enemies within and without / I chant your name ceaselessly and victoriously / I bow to you Special thanks to everyone who submitted inquiries — keep ‘em coming! An extra special thanks to everyone who took a moment to send me a birthday message. I greatly appreciate it. Beginning my 50th year feeling awesome! I sincerely hope you enjoy the conversation. Peace + Plants, Rich

Hey everybody, what's going on? What's happening? I am your host. I am Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to the show. Hey, Julie. Hey, Rich. How are you? Bonjour. Bonjour. My co-host today, this is our German-French edition of the Ask Me Anything episode. Actually, it's coming straight to you from Paris.

From Paris. We're in Paris right now. Mon montre. Mon montre. That was okay. Was that okay? In the, I don't know what district we're in, the 18th arrondissement. Arrondissement.

Yeah, so it's been a while. I took French in high school for many years. I know, you keep saying that, but it doesn't seem to help much. I'm doing pretty good with the comprehension part, not so good on the speaking part, the vocabulary. Yeah, me too. Not so good. But I found that if I talk in either a German or a French accent in English, this is very effective.

It's confusing. I know. Yes, it's good. We do this. You will like. No, it's kind of funny because you actually turned to me and started speaking to me in that voice, and we had a funny laugh. We were in Germany, and the details aren't important,

but I was like, yes, and this person I know. I like this. You looked at me like, who are you? It just happens. I said, what have you done with my husband? I know, right? That's what happens. No, you used to tease me.

It's like you pretend that you know the language, but you don't at all. No, but you used to tease me because I used to speak English like that to my European friends and used to really tease me relentlessly. So it was funny to hear you shift into the into the lingo. So we had a couple European friends back home in Los Angeles. And if you spent a little bit too much time with them, you would come home with that kind of like truncated English that sounds like a German person speaking English, as opposed to just talking the way that you talk so that's what's funny about human beings right i guess so all right well you guys know the deal this is the podcast where uh we talk about big ideas we converse with the outliers across all categories of positive paradigm breaking culture change

why do we do this julie what is the point. Why do we do this, Julie? What is the point of all this? We do this so that we can all be inspired to unlock and unleash our most authentic best self. There you go. How's that? You got it. That's pretty good. So thank you, everybody, for subscribing to the show,

for giving us a review on iTunes. If you haven't done that, take a moment. Just give us a review on iTunes. It really haven't done that, take a moment. Just give us a review on iTunes. It really helps us out a lot with all that ranking algorithm sort of mysterious nonsense that goes on over at iTunes. It cannot be figured out.

Yeah. We have no idea how it works. So yeah, take a moment and do that, please. And thank you to everybody who's been using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. You can find the Amazon banner ad. I tried to like make it tasteful and not like some crazy, you know, click here thing with a

bunch of arrows around it. But if you just go to richroll.com forward slash podcast, you'll see it. It's right there on the main podcast page. Just click that takes you to Amazon. And then whatever you end up buying, we get a little credit and Amazon kicks us some commission change. It doesn't cost you anything extra. They don't like increase the cost of whatever you're buying. And I think it's just a cool way to support the show. You're probably going to buy something on Amazon anyway, and puts a little wind in our sails and allows us to continue doing what we do. That's right. Bringing you all this free content. So thank you. We appreciate it. Very much, very much so. So on that note, and in the interest of taking care of a little business. Okay, cool. So we're in Paris. How are you feeling about being in Paris, Julie?

Feeling amazing about being in Paris. It feels so great to be back. I lived here for six months during college and been back a few times since then. It's one of my favorite cities. It truly is an extraordinary place on the planet. And I just I feel amazing and blessed to be here and just soaking it all up for sure. Yeah, it's cool. We're here. It was my birthday yesterday. Thank you to everybody who sent me a nice birthday email or text or Facebook post or tweet or what have you.

I really appreciate that. It means a lot to me. I turned 49 yesterday, so I'm in my 50th year feeling spry as a 24-year-old. I just got back from a beautiful run all around Paris, which is my favorite thing to do. It's been many years since I've been in Paris, so like at least 15, maybe like 20 years. No, not quite that long.

Yeah, you said you came when you were 16, right? Right, so I'm 49. Well, yeah, so I would have been nine when I was here. I think actually the last time i think the last maybe the only time i've ever been here i was 16 so that that's and and i i forgot how large the city is and how complicated the streets are and it's you know it doesn't it sort of goes all over the place so uh rather than like study a map and try to figure out where to go i just went outside the hotel and just started running all around and got completely lost, but it was cool. That's what I like to do to explore and felt

amazing way to kick off my 50th year, uh, with the exception of doing a podcast and bringing the experience to you guys. Uh, so thanks again for the birthday wishes. And it's not like we just came to Paris for my birthday. This is the, we're in the kind of two thirds into a little bit of a European jaunt that has to do with promoting not only the Plant Power Way, but the German edition of the Plant Power Way, Das Plantpower-Kuck-Buck, which just came out. And we went, we were originally in,

well, their purpose was to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair. So let's walk them through the trip. There were some pretty cool things that happened. I mean, the first thing is we flew in. When we looked at the itinerary, I was like, why are we going to all these places if we're just going to the book fair? But it turned out to be a pretty awesome experience in Germany. Pretty dynamic week. to Basel, which is the Swiss-German-French border, basically, and drove about, I don't know, 30 minutes to a small town in southern Germany, like the southwestern part of Germany called Kandern,

which is where, it's a little village at the edge of the Black Forest where the headquarters for our German publishing house exists, and they're called Narayana Verlag. And it's this beautiful, like, sort of renovated, authentic villa, like in the square of this little village in rural Germany. And inside this building is not only a publishing house, but also, amazingly, a full homeopathic medical clinic that's run by a brother and a sister, the publishing house, an apartment where we stayed, a complete full like semi-industrial kitchen where they have a plant-based chef preparing meals. They have a staff of all

kinds of people. Like what else is going on there? It was surreal. It's like we arrived to this amazing apartment and looked in the kitchen, and it was fully stocked with everything from my cookbook. And we saw copies of The Plant Power Way in German sort of sprinkled throughout, and all the other amazing vegan books which they publish. And then one of the chefs had prepared Rich's birthday apple pie already. And so they sorted to us when we arrived, and they had made it with cashew cream, and it was extremely delicious. So I knew from that point on that we were going to be very well taken care of, because later on, we had one of the best vegan meals I've ever had. And just the vibration and the energy of the cooks, they're all meditators. And it was just really surreal, really quite nice.

Yeah, they're sort of known in Germany as being the house that publishes the plant-based kind of primers out there. And they do all of Brendan Brazier's books. And they also have all these nutritional products and homeopathic products on their website so in the pre-roll ad for uh this episode you might have heard me give out the url it's nariana-verlag.com uh and you you can get not only like all of these amazing german translations of popular plant-based themed books that are put out in the United States, but also superfoods and, you know, like Vega products and homeopathic remedies. So it's pretty cool how they've integrated kind of wellness with publishing.

Right. And so rather than sort of adapt the recipes to fit a region, they're actually maintaining the authenticity of the recipes and then working very hard to supply the ingredients via an online store, which is extraordinary. So you can get all of the ingredients that, you know, we're sourcing in the US, you can get them, you know, in Europe, right internationally, which is going to dovetail into something we're going to talk about a little bit later, which is, you know, sort of plant-based on the road. And also, you know, if you live in a place that's very different from where we, like if you live in Europe, now there's another opportunity through this website to get all

of these sort of ingredients and products that, you know, that can kind of buttress your health quotient in your kitchen, which is pretty cool as this kind of trend starts to explode and expand, which is pretty cool as this kind of trend starts to explode and expand, which is great and really nice. So, so initially I was like, why are we going to the here first? Why can't we just go to the book fair? But it was a great place to kind of decompress and adjust to the eight hour time difference. And I got to go running in the black forest and, you know, Julie got to play her sitar and, you know, like meditate and do some yoga and like acclimate and we ate amazing food. And it was just, you know, it was kind of a great way to just

kind of immerse ourselves in German culture before we had to go into the craziness that is the Frankfurt Book Fair. Yeah. And it was really also just such a blessing for us and, you know, a treat to be able to sit inside the Black Forest and be in the moisture with the ferns growing and all the ivy and these, you know, huge ancient trees. It felt, you know, truly like my cells were soaking up, you know, much needed water. It's extremely dry in California where we are right now. And so it was magical. And of course, I've always heard about the Black Forest being associated with really amazing levels of health and, you know, nutrition and healthy living and connection to nature and even mystical, you know, elements.

So I was extremely happy to meditate sitting against a tree for some hours in the Black Forest. Isn't the Black Forest like the sort of source of all these, some of these fairy tales, like Little Red Riding Hood? Yeah, I think so. Of course. All that kind of stuff supposedly takes place in that forest. I think it has definitely a Wiccan healer history and lineage. Well, going running in there, I mean, you can get so lost so quick. There's just paths and trails and roads going. I mean, I mean, you can get so lost so quick. There's just paths and trails and roads going.

I mean, I suppose if you just keep running, you'd probably end up in the next village over or something like that. But it looks like you could just disappear in there, never to be found from again. Very beautiful, very lush and very beautiful. went to a farmer's market, local farmer's market as well, in this amazing town called Freiburg, which is supposed to be like the hip sort of college town of this area. And anyway, the farmer's market was insane. I wish I'd had a week to just stay here and cook sourcing. It's got to be one of the oldest farmer's markets on planet Earth because it's at the base of this insane

cathedral and the cathedral was built in in like medieval times like i don't know what the date of it was like what did they say they said it was it was built like i don't know what the date is but really old right especially when you're american you're like with a capital o and they had like little rectangles and squares that were like etched into the wall at about, you know, eye height. And apparently those the as the as the lore goes, as the story goes, the merchants, the sort of farmers that would come in, would use those as sizes to calibrate prices for certain like produce products, I guess. So it's basically the indication being that like there was a farmer's market going on here and like, you know, the 1400s or whatever,

and it's still going on like most days. I think it's not just like one day a week. No, she said every day. Yeah, like every day. Yeah, it's incredible. And the produce is like insane with these incredible mushrooms. The mushrooms in the Black Forest are like, you know, that's the thing, right? So tons of those. And anyway, Black Forest are like, you know, that's the thing, right? So tons of those.

And anyway, delicious. And a sort of sensibility and awareness about organic produce that I think is on a higher level, you know, in terms of sort of prioritization than it is in the United States. Like they're totally into organic. Like they have a lot more awareness about GMOs and things like that, like in terms of labeling and whatever. I think they're just a little bit more progressive on that front in terms of regulations and legislations. But anyway, we super enjoyed that. And so we just did some media in Freiburg and then we got in a car and we went to Frankfurt for this book fair. And we had heard like, oh yeah, the Frankfurt book fair, we're going there to announce the German release of the cookbook. It's a huge book fair. It's the biggest book fair. we had heard like oh yeah the frankfurt book fair we're going there to announce the german release of the cookbook um it's a huge book fair it's the biggest book fair i think it's

the biggest international book fair in the world and i'm like yeah yeah yeah but like it'll probably be like national food products expo or something like that i was imagining just like a big trade show right um it's so much bigger than you can imagine. Like it takes over just a massive number of gigantic auditorium halls, like just a huge amount of like square footage in this, like multiple centers, right, in Frankfurt? Yeah, there are like six halls, and it's a massive, massive building, multiple buildings that are connected with just thousands of people just all pushing up against each other going on for multiple days. It was quite a turnout.

And you definitely looked around and said, wow, people are really buying a lot of books. Yeah, I guess books are still a thing. Books are still happening. You think, oh, no one reads anymore or it's all going electronic or whatever. happening you know like you think like oh no one reads anymore or it's all going electronic or whatever but i can tell you like based on what we observed at this event like oh yeah like i think the book business still is on some level thriving i mean that's based on on what we observed and how many people were there it was like crazy so it was great we were able to do a bunch of you know press interviews about the release to the german public and we got to connect do a bunch of press interviews about the release to the German public, and we got to connect with a bunch of people who came out, people who live around Germany or proximate to Germany to come out and say hello and connect with, which was really nice.

me who lives in Newcastle in the United Kingdom like the northern part of Britain he's the guy behind the Rich Roll Fans UK Twitter account. Yeah so follow there. So he's a super fan and he literally got on a plane flew to Amsterdam and then flew

to Frankfurt just to meet us and wasn't even sure if he was going to be able to like if we were going to be around when he was there like he just wanted to connect with us and wasn't even sure if he was going to be able to, like if we were going to be around when he was there, like he just wanted to connect with us. And luckily we were there and we were able to hang out with him. And that was like really special and cool. Yeah. It was super, super touching, really amazing guy. And, uh, he's a teacher, a school teacher and recently has left like standardized education and he is teaching autistic children now and his wife is a nurse and um he just uh really really felt inspired and to come and meet rich really really he really

really wanted to meet you and it was just it it blew me away it made me cry actually he has such a beautiful face and impurity of heart and uh it was just blew us away that you made the trip so jamie thanks for having the courage and persevering and stepping out of your comfort zone and rich and i hope to see you again uh for sure um down the road it's not a small thing i mean he's on a teacher's salary so he's not making very much money. It's expensive, you know, that he would like do that. It's just, it blows me away that somebody would do that. And I just, I, you know, I, I don't, like I said, I don't take it lightly. Like that means a lot that somebody would do that. So thank you, Jamie. And, uh, and it was cool to meet you. I'm sure we'll be talking a little bit more soon and just so many other

people that turned out, right? We also gave a talk at this sustainability conference. It was sort of like a veg fest, some of the veg fests that I've been in the United States to. It was called Held in Macht. And it was in this beautiful old kind of hall with like gigantic high ceilings and kind of open air, like indoor marketplace.

And Julie did a cooking demo. We gave a little talk. And there were a couple hundred people that showed up for that, which was super fun. So yeah, we were kind of like on a little tour in Germany. No, it was very cool. The Heldenmarkt was really an amazing building and a great event. And we had so many podcast fans show up for that and coming with their books. So everybody who came out to that

we really appreciate it cyrus and sabine and georgina and monfred and malta malta twice anyway it was really cool to see you guys and just make that connection and it means a lot to us it was a really amazing event it was a a little strange doing a cooking demo in German with somebody sort of translating in German and also the ingredients not really all being all there. But it was more about us talking and sharing our story so we didn't get too caught up in the actual cooking, which is how Rich and I do it anyway in the States. And we also were able to do an amazing cooking demo at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which was really cool as well. So we had probably 100 people, and it was being filmed.

And we were there in the Miele kitchen, which is a fantastic gourmet gallery. It was definitely where all the chefs showcased their food. So it was wonderful to be included in that as well. So it was a beautiful experience. Yeah, it was great. And also when we were in Frankfurt, we got to hang out with Patrick Baboumian, the world's strongest man. Strong man.

Wolverine. The human Wolverine. For those of you who don't know who he is, he broke a world record in Toronto a couple years ago. I was there with him at the Toronto VegFest where he set a Guinness Book of World Records for most weight carried by a human being ever, 550 kilograms, which is like 1,200 pounds,

on this chassis, I forget what you call it, like a yoke that he puts on his shoulders that has all these metal plates on it, and he has to go 10 meters in a certain amount of time with that amount of weight on it, which was pretty cool. He then broke that record again. And we were able to sit down and do a podcast and we were exhausted. It was at the end of a very long day of doing press stuff. And I was like, I hope we can just get like an hour out of this before we have to go eat. And I was like, I hope we can just get like an hour out of this before we have to go eat. We ended up talking for three hours.

So it was pretty epic. I think we could have talked all day. I'm sure I'll have him on the podcast again. But you have that episode to look forward to coming up soon, right? We made some videos with a guy called Jens Noller, who's a marathon runner, plant-based dude, journalist in Frankfurt, which was really fun. And then we went to Berlin, which I'd never been to Berlin before. That's right. But before we go to Berlin, I just have to share the most mind-blowing experience maybe

of my entire life happened. We're going through security in Frankfurt, and I travel at the airport, and where else is there security? Well, I'm just being clear so people understand. Well, maybe we're at the airport and where else is there security? Well, I just being clear, so people understand, well, maybe we're at the train station or something. So we're at the airport, I'm going through security and I travel with my sitar now wherever I go. And I've gotten pretty, I'm pretty comfortable traveling with it. And I managed to make my way through security and all that without too much problem. And there was a security officer who was completely just enthralled with my sitar. And he, you know, he asked me, what is that? Is

that a sitar? And I said, yes. And he said, Oh, my God, you know, George Harrison was my favorite Beatle. Will you play for us? And it's in this big, like burgundy case, like it's kind of dramatic looking, it has wheels on it and you roll it. So it's very tall everywhere we go when we're in airports, people are always stopping you. What is that? What is that? Like, it's like a topic of conversation. Uh, but, but this guy took it to the next level. No. So I said, you know, I kind of laughed. Ha ha. Yeah. I love the Beatles too. And then, you know, then he asked me again, he said, would you, would you play for us? And, uh, I was getting my things and I said, Oh, I don't know if I have time. Our flight's leaving.

He's like, when does your flight leave? And I said, oh, in an hour. Oh, no, it's just there. You have time. Will you play for us? So I looked at him and I said, are you serious? And he goes, yes. He goes, we've never heard it before.

So I said, okay. So I got my case out and got my stuff, opened my case up, spread my poncho down on the floor, because I have to play it sitting down cross-legged in a certain position. So I get it all set, and I actually played sitar and sang for the security at Frankfurt Airport, and they all listened to me, and when I finished, they all applauded as they were checking all the passengers through simultaneously. It was the strangest thing I have ever experienced. It was crazy.

It was crazy. Like in the United States, you're used to like the security people being really gruff and kind of short with you. And this guy was so effusive and like just solicitous. Like he's like, no, you got to play. And he's like, it's cool. Just sit down you gotta play and he's like it's cool just sit down and there are all these it's a huge security thing like all the people are putting their stuff through the you know the conveyor belts and the whole deal and right in the middle of that whole thing like julie just sits down and plays like a song and she's singing and all the guards are

watching her and there's police there and i pull out my phone i'm like i gotta like snapchat this or make a video of this like this is unbelievable And as soon as I started to film it, the police woman was like, no, no filming. Like, you can sit down and play sitar, but I can't make a video out of it. She wouldn't let me take a video of it because I was like, no one's going to believe this. And then when you were done, like everybody clapped, all the police people clapped and the other, you know, passengers who were going through clapped. And I was like, what just happened? That was crazy.

Definitely the last place on earth that I thought that that would ever happen. But it was just this this lovely guy who obviously is a music lover. I asked him, I said, are you a musician? And he said no, but he he probably needs to become a musician because he definitely feels the beauty of music. So I hope he does. Yeah. So that was a cool little experience. Right. he probably needs to become a musician because he definitely feels the beauty of music. So I hope he does. Yeah, so that was a cool little experience, right? That was funny. So we get to Berlin really late at night the other night

and stayed in a cool little hotel that had a vegan restaurant downstairs. And the following day, we spent the entire day making a video for Der Spiegel and Achim Ach which is which is a sort of fitness website um in germany in berlin uh with this guy called micah klotzbier who is sort of uh he's become kind of a internet celebrity he lives he was a former like he was a professional soccer player when he was young blew out his knees gained a of weight, became just like a kind of a typical big fat guy.

And he went on this sort of weight loss journey that he shared online. And it became like a news story. A bunch of people got involved with, you know, his experience. It was kind of like his own personal biggest loser thing where he was sharing how he was losing his weight. And I think he lost like 100 pounds or something like that. 120 kilos. He lost 120 kilos. I don't know how many pounds that is but that's a lot that's way more than 120 pounds. Yeah. Right so he was massive and he still got a little ways to go but he lost a ton of weight

and he's kind of just a really fun excitable guy. So we spent the whole day making a couple videos with him and we were at the old the old Berlin airport that's now closed down that was sort of operable during World War II where the U.S. Army would drop supplies in. Now it's turned into this massive park with this huge loop where people go running and things like that. It's pretty historic and very cool, even though it was raining and freezing out.

It was freezing. And then we went to the Olympic Swimming Notatorium where they host the European Championships, this incredibly beautiful, state-of-the-art, world-class swimming facility, basically where you could have the Olympics there. It's that caliber of a facility. And we did some fun stuff there.

He doesn't want to, Micah doesn't want us to tell anybody what we did. You'll have to wait for the videos, but it was a fun day. Yeah, it was cool. And it was cool for me to like be in a, I haven't been in a, in a,

like an auditorium of that kind of like, of that echelon in such a long time. So it was fun to go to a place like that and swim. And, and the thing about Berlin, that's super cool. That might be counterintuitive for you, who,

you know, for those of you who are listening is that it's an amazing place for there's a lot of awareness and excitement about the plant-based movement the vegan movement tons of vegan restaurants they even have a chain of vegan grocery stores there called vegans yeah that ends with a z and they're like supermarkets i mean they're not huge like the size of Safeway or something like that. But they're still a good size kind of like grocery store where every single item in the store is plant-based. Yeah, that's cool. And they have like a deli counter and you can get smoothies and sandwiches and all kinds of like lunch foods and things like that.

And buy all your stuff for at home in the kitchen. Incredible. We could have stayed there. Just would have been fine. Yeah, I was like, this is amazing. lunch foods and things like that and buy all your stuff for at home in the kitchen yeah we could have stayed there just would have been fine this is amazing like this would be so cool to have in the united states and like here it is in berlin it's true and then at our hotel they had every meal they had a whole vegan spread just everything vegan and i had croissant at this hotel and it tasted amazing. So amazing that I had to ask, is that vegan? And it is vegan. The chef would not give me the recipe, even though I probably could not make it anyway, because croissant is a whole, it's a whole thing into itself, but it was exciting and inspiring to know that it can't that that type of bread and that kind of level of

taste in a in a bread and a pastry can be executed. So I'm excited about discovering more about that. But apparently this chef had been raised vegan since he was a boy. Yeah, it's cool. I Berlin is a super cool city. It's full of like kind of art and vitality and youthful energy and creativity. And I feel like that kind of like, you know, that community of young people is what kind of, you know, is inspiring and kind of pushing forward this movement there. And it's pretty, it's pretty cool to see it like thriving there. Yeah, it is. It's exciting. It's, it seems like a very open city and a city of possibility and where just a lot of new things are happening and a lot of new movements.

And it was funny because then later in the day, we actually went and worked on a cooking, some cooking demos. And it was mainly how to translate. I don't want to give too much away because you'll see it in the video. But basically, I had to address, you know know typical german meals and you know how i would how i would address that and so what would your like if if you like eating this like what is your suggestion for right so luckily you know of course we refuse to take a bite of anything that they that they put on the table but it was it was fun it was interesting yeah so that was great and then uh it was exhausting though, man.

We were just on point for like many days and then just came to Paris to kind of decompress for a couple of days and have a little birthday experience. So Julie, for my birthday, surprised me and took me to this incredible restaurant last night. I mean, that has to be the most extravagant, restaurant last night. I mean, that has to be the most extravagant, like incredibly beautiful gourmet plant-based dinner of all time last night. That I've ever been in my entire life. I don't

think anything else in the world exists like it. Like it's, it was the finest plant-based meal, probably perhaps on the entire planet at a place called L'Arppege which is a very fancy restaurant uh where the chef uh the master chef presides his name is alan passar yeah alan passar he came out he was extremely sweet very very affectionate uh very connected to his clientele a lot of touching and charming and uh it was sweet it was sweet to see him so that was and it was like a tasting menu uh where they just bring out little dish after little dish and we counted how many were there were like 15 or 16 i lost count i was thinking there can't be more than 12 and then we were already at like 18 or something it wasn't that many it got up at the end i think we ended i

think it was 18 18 dishes including the including the juice and including the tasting the like palate cleansing things right so it was it was quintessentially french in that regard we got there at like 7 45 and we didn't leave until like 11 45 that's right and happy traveler did very well even though this is not his style he actually just stayed there patient till the end yeah it was definitely beyond extravagant you know that was a once in a lifetime we'll never we'll birthday probably never do that again thing like that's not like an everyday well but also it's like it's world famous and you know this is we're in this world and we're sharing in this world and you know this is a chef of somebody who is extremely inspirational to me and you know it was appropriate

we arrived on your birthday you know what were the odds we were going to be in paris on your birthday and to have that opportunity it actually was recommended uh by a podcast no not a podcast man a close friend of ours who you met from the vegan movement though, Romain. And he lives actually in Paris and unfortunately he's in Spain this weekend so we didn't get to see him. But he suggested it and, you know, I thought it was perfect. So the meals were incredible.

Rich and I Instagram, we took a bunch of photos. I'm going to Instagram it extensively. And I'm already inspired because I can see already some technique and some inspiration that I can adapt from his process and combine it with mine. And so I'm excited about the new recipes that are going to emerge as a result of this opportunity to exchange energy and eat his amazing food. And can I just say the tastes were absolutely incredible. They burst in your mouth, all the, the variation of the different kinds of tastes and the textures. It was truly extraordinary, truly a gifted artist. And if you ever

have the chance to check it out, or you have a very special occasion um we will definitely recommend um to uh yeah i mean it takes a farm to table to a new level because all the food that you eat is from one of two gardens that are like an hour or two away from the restaurant so they source all of their produce from these two plots of land that they own and control, I suppose, which is amazing in its own right. But then he makes these unique combinations that you wouldn't ever think of that create these amazing tastes. Like there was a juice that you drank it and it just tasted like a beautiful piece of the earth. And I'm like, I couldn't even identify what was in it. It was you who was able to figure it out it was apple and radish radish yeah and

also turnip apple radish turnip and that would sound weird and that's not something you would ever would ever occur to you to make and it was absolutely amazing you know so that would be just an example yeah and powerful and also I was well aware you know they were bringing the courses and they were explaining the food to you and sharing, you know, sharing exactly the ingredients. They took a long time with that. But one of the middle courses, which was just a vegetable consomme. But the thing that was beautiful about it, it was all 22 members of vegetables from the garden like so they took the entire community if you think of

it on a frequency level or an energy level so they took the entire community of the garden because the garden is really a whole because each plant and each vegetable in the garden affects the whole just like you know us as human beings and we're always talking being part of the macrocosm and we're the microcosm. So to serve us a consomme made from 22 vegetables was incredible. I think that's my ride. Where are you going? No, I'm just kidding.

I'll answer the phone right now. Are you leaving? All right, go answer it quick. Of course, like the phone never rings and then we do a podcast and the phone rings. Hello, oui? Listen to that accent. Au revoir.

I usually unplug the phone before I do these things and then sometimes people think I'm crazy, but I'm telling you the frequency with that the phone rings when you're in a hotel room when you do this, even though like who uses like landlines and whatever. Anyway.

Okay. Are we still recording recording sorry about that yeah you just kept that on yeah okay hi everyone so that was awesome podcasting so good thanks for being by that thanks for being patient so anyway thank you for taking me to that restaurant last night that was delightful and um birthday and i think that uh that it that it kind of um dovetails nicely into a couple things that I want to talk about. Wait, can I just say one thing? Okay, so at the end, I let them know it was Rich's birthday, so I asked for something special.

And they arranged these paper-thin slices of an apple on a plate in the most beautiful design that I've ever seen with the most beautiful flowers on top of it. And it was very, very nice. But I have to say that your apple pie from the plant power way, just totally ruled over that. It was their version of Yeah, it was not happening. They were trying to copy you. Well, no, I don't know. But it was missing in, it was definitely lacking in definitely the nut cheeses, in the crust, and in the opportunity with nuts to give it more of a foundation or more of a variance. So I don't think that they have really gone there yet. So it was interesting. I will actually look forward to sending him a copy of my book. And who knows?

Maybe I'll inspire him too. You never know. You never know. The student inspires the teacher, and the teacher inspires the student. So you never know. All right. So we're going to get into some questions in a second. But before we do that, we've got another little interesting tidbit from our friends at Harry's.

Harry's? I love Harry's. I love Harry's too. You know why? Because shaving is freaking expensive. Oh, that's why. And you go to the store and the blades cost an absolute fortune. And then you never know which blades work with which handle.

And you bring home the wrong ones. And then you got to go back to the CVS and it's all locked down in a Lucite case. And you got to find the kid with hair in his face who has those things in his earlobes, you know, and he doesn't really want to help you and he's staring at his feet, but he shuffles over and opens it anyway. And then you ask him to those, is the Mach three, does that go with the force? And is, should I get five blades or three blades and he's still looking at his feet and he's not helpful so you then spend like 50 bucks on these blades that don't work the whole thing is ridiculous so they cost a lot yeah there's a lot of plastic it's inconvenient there's a lot of waste you gotta drive in your car and you waste

not sustainable more importantly not sustainable well a a couple guys who got together to solve this problem. No, they're not named Harry. Oh, that's disappointing. Ironically, you think. I'd like to know the story behind why they decided to call it Harry's. We'll have to find that out. But there are a couple guys who identified this same frustration and the same problem that I was having, right?

And they decided to do something about it. That's right. Because they're doers. They doers they take action they take action but i love this product because it's such great design it's it has a classic feel to it it has that heavy like metal handle that i like yeah it feels uh you know uh stately uh historical, established. Bespoke. Oh, okay. Yes, bespoke. Harry's delivers a superior shave. I can personally attest to that. How do they do that?

Well, the first thing is they bought a blade factory in Germany. We were just in Germany. We should have gone to the Harry's blade factory. That would have been a great video. That would have been awesome. Harry's, we're coming back next September. Next time we come to Germany, we'll do that. Which is running a marathon, and we hear.

Right. Well, this blade factory has been crafting some of the world's highest quality blades for nearly a century. So it's a good match. And by having this factory, they're able to cut out the middleman, which means they can offer an amazing shave at a fraction of the price of the drugstore brands. Their starter kit is just $15. of the drugstore brands. Their starter kit's just 15 bucks. It includes a razor, three blades,

and your choice of Harry's shave cream or foam shaving gel for just 15 bucks. That's crazy. And as an added bonus, you can get $5 off your first purchase with my code ROLL, R-O-L-L. After using my code, you can get an entire month's worth of shaving for just 10 bucks.

And shipping is always free, which is huge right uh shipping's always the thing that makes it a pain like you think you're buying something for a certain price and then you look at the shipping and you're like wow well shipping is free with harry's so go to harry's.com now and harry's will give you five dollars off if you type in my code roll with your first purchase that's h-a-r-r-Y-S.com and enter coupon code ROLL at checkout for $5 off the starter set and start shaving smarter today.

I think I'm going to start shaving after that ad. Well, the whole ad's all about how it's like for men, but like why shouldn't it be for women too? Well, it's not for me because I wax, but... You wax, but if you shaved your legs... If I shaved, I would use Harry's. And I shaved my legs, so I go through probably more than my fair share of Harry's blades compared to the average guy.

Maybe some of you don't know that, but he's that special guy that he actually shaves his legs. And I'm secure enough to talk about it. That's amazing. How about that? It's incredible. What are we talking about today? I'm not quite sure.

Don't we have some questions? Yeah, I mean, I think the questions are, what we're going to do today is kind of do a hybrid amalgam of some questions that kind of hit on similar or overlapping themes, right? And one of the themes is, there's two things I really want to talk about today, but the first one is something that we were talking about earlier, which is this kind of, when you when you're at a place and you're ready to kind of make a change, there's a tendency, at least in our culture,

to get overly fixated on the weight loss aspect of the change to be kind of overly obsessed with what the scale says, and, and to kind of quote unquote be on this diet that is inherently sort of temporary by its very definition. And so what we wanted to talk about is maybe a little bit of a different approach to lifestyle change that is a little bit more broad and comprehensive in not only its approach, but also in its benefits. Well, and I think this is connected to, you know, the emotional aspects of eating food and overeating food and having, you know, using food as a, you know, as a security blanket

or as something to make you feel better, or as a drug, or as something to stuff your emotions. And I think what's happening is, when you go through a period of transformation, where you have addressed the food, because it is the first thing that you have to start considering, you know, what are you putting in your mouth? And what's going on in your microbiome? And, you know, what are you eating? You know, are you overeating? Are you eating when you're emotional? You know, looking, you know, thinking, looking at all those aspects. I just feel like there is a large emotional ocean of exploration that needs to be dived into and really looked at and really discovered

because it's what was propelling you to eat, to overeat in the first place or use in the, in the first place. And so we had a little, sort of a little baby window into this when we were, um, shooting with, with Micah and, you know, he's lost a tremendous amount of weight and we had a kind of a moment together, and I was talking to him. He had these physical challenges planned for you. It was all about the physical challenge, and I sort of jokingly but authentically suggested to him that possibly the greatest challenge would be to actually stop and look inside for a moment, would be to actually stop and look inside for a moment and maybe sit with me and be present and connect.

And in the moment that I said that, I could see the emotion just well up in his eyes. And so, you know, I wanted to go there. The film crew didn't want to go there. Well, that doesn't make for a good five-minute quick video. No, it doesn't. But a good five minute quick video. No, it doesn't. So, but what I'm saying is I'm just, you know, I know we've, we've established a friendship with him and we have, you know, things coming up in the future, but it just sort of brought this to the surface about how, you know, this is a lot of what we're dealing with

when people are overeating or when they have a lot of weight. It's like, what did they do when the weight comes off and their heart is sitting there bare and open and vulnerable? And that's a very scary place to be. And there needs to be some tools and guidance and nurturing so that we can lovingly support ourselves and each other to clear that emotional trauma and heal from it and become truly whole. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the difference between like going on a diet and saying, I'm going to take a new approach to how I'm living my life. Like I'm going to shift my priorities and my perspective. And that gets the external manifestation of that are the habits that you then adopt or change, like what you're choosing to eat or how you're deciding to move your body. But that will then kind of tap into,

you know, what it is that's important to you, like what it is that you want to express, like, how do you want to live your life? You know, it's very different from a diet, right? And when you can kind of get right with that, then that will be, you know, the determined, that will be determinative of how you're going to make decisions going forward. But that has to be locked down and rock solid, right? Like that's the foundation that you're building that will then drive every other behavior pattern outside of that. Yeah, but before you can have it locked down and solid, there is a very vulnerable, raw, scary process that one has to go through. And it requires looking at the shadow side,

it requires looking at things that you have stuffed under the bed that you have furthestly, you know, put in the furthest corner of your mind, that you have suppressed your entire life, because you don't want, you know, you just don't want to look at it, it's not pretty, you know, in, you know, it could be a whole range of experiences. But as human beings, you know, this is how life is designed. And this is, you know, these are the things that we go through. And so you can you can tell and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm never one to quote science. know that, you know, if someone has, you know, a terrible pain, an emotional trauma or a split or a fragmentation from something that happened to them as a child or in their life, and they have not cleared it or healed it, they could lose the weight and, you know, fit into the dress size that

they want and look really great on the outside, but they will still be suffering on the inside. So the outside fix does suffering on the inside. So the outside fix does not heal the inside. No, and actually, Micah said something to that effect. It was very revealing at one point, not when we were filming, but just in passing, he said, you know, I've lost all this weight, but I still think of myself as in and take make decisions based on you know, what it was like when I was super fat, right? So he still sees himself in that way, and there's a lot of wounds there. And I also think getting to that place is a function of whatever's going on inside of you, right?

Like whether it's a self-esteem thing or whatever your emotional pain body is that allows that to, over time, kind of occur, like this external manifestation of this overweight, unhealthy body. Like what's really going on inside that would allow that to happen to you? And you can say, well, you know, we use food as to numb our emotions. And that's certainly true, but I think it's much deeper than that. It goes a lot deeper than that. Certainly foods can be drugs, especially the processed foods that we're eating, and they become very addictive, right? But what is the emotional pain? What is it that's creating all of this?

How can we connect with that and heal that? Because if you can do that, then you're on to something truly transformational. This is why I always, you know, advocate meditation and advocate, you know, really, you know, stepping into a meditation practice, specifically the program that I designed that is on, you know, on our website. And the reason is because you, I heard a lot being said, you know, well, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to drink the green juices. That's the emotional body saying, don't clear too much because I'm afraid I'll be revealed. I'm afraid I'll have to be. I'll have to look at that or I'll have to emotionally connect with that thing that I'm trying so hard to not look at. Exactly. If you embark upon a plant-based diet and then you combine that with a meditation practice, you will kind of be dealing with the healing from more of a holistic approach.

And this is where I differ from physical exercise. So I don't think it's the same as running until you, you know, running yourself into the ground. I don't think this is the same aspect of healing that we're speaking to. Surely that can be transformative, and it can be an amazing experience. I know there are many people that, you know, love to run, and they say they're addicted to running, or they love that feeling. But I don't think running is a substitute for meditation. Yeah, there's an active meditation aspect to running, but it doesn't replace what actually

doing a true meditation practice can accomplish. I'm talking about sitting meditation. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. The active meditation aspect of running has its place and it has its benefits, but it's a different animal altogether from the actual sitting practice of a more traditional, you know, focused meditation practice. And I also think that in the same way that, you know, certain people like they, you adopt a plant-based diet and then it just becomes all about kale. We've talked about this before.

So we're always talking about going beyond the kale like you gotta like you you clean up your diet and you like you know raise the the vitality bar on your life so that you can then express that in your life not say stay stuck in this obsession with the food part of it like i love food and of course we love food and we express ourselves through food we have a a cookbook, of course, but life is more than that as well. And I think that can be applied to, um, to sport, to sport, to sport. I make sport today. Today I make, today I go, I make some sport. Uh, it can be applied to sports and running as well, right?

Like you can get, you can, you can be running, but you can be very hard with yourself. Like you're out like, oh, I got to run. You know, like you're almost torturing yourself. It can be its own. Um, it can be its own repression machine. Uh, it can be liberating as well. It's the perspective that you bring to it. It's the relationship that you have with it. Um, but if you're stuck in running and like you get super compulsive about it and you know, is that any better than any other addictive behavior pattern? Well, it's better than eating cheeseburgers all day. But it's certainly, I don't think it's the solution that you're looking for that's going to give you the peace that perhaps is behind the hardness and what you're truly seeking.

Well, I mean, I think it's different if you're running from yourself or you're running from your demons or you're running for the love of it. You're running for the pure joy of it. So if you're running because you're afraid, if you stop, you're going to have to face yourself in the mirror and see something that you don't like or something that you're going to have to reckon with, like some something from, you know, some pain or some aspect of your past or your development that that needs to be healed, if you're running to avoid that, or doing whatever it is that you're watching TV or playing video games, or whatever, whatever it is, then yeah, that that's an unhealthy relationship, right? And there's always, you know, there's always opportunity in self inquiry, in self discovery, in self discovery, in sitting

in meditation. So it's not like you get to a point and, you know, and then there's nothing else to inquire about. You know, there's a lot to inquire about as human beings. And I think that everyone should be comforted in the fact that if you've lived a human life, you have some skeletons in your closet, if you're really being honest. So there, there is no human experience or human life that did not have any darkness in it. So rather than think that you have to suppress it or have to hide from it, you should feel empowered and looking at that realizing that in order to be a fully integrated being, you have to have embraced both the light and the dark. It is what has made you who you are today.

So you can't just cut off a part of your existence and pretend that it never existed or that it didn't happen. That being said, it doesn't mean you have to write a book about it or talk about it on the air like we do, or you can process that in a very personal way in different ways. It's between you and you, you know, it's between you and whatever that force is you call God. But this is what I'm talking about the importance of meditation and the importance of really, you know, finding a practice, there are thousands of

techniques, you know, available. And I also have this very powerful program that I designed that, you know, was definitely transformative for me. And that's why I share it rich, likes headspace. So there's, you know, many different techniques, but I, I feel the need to call the attention back to the to meditation. And really, what are we doing in a human life because we cannot uncover and solve and resolve all of our energy by simply running or by simply eating a plant-based diet. Yeah, that's right. I'm looking at this article right now because this conversation has provoked this in me

so this article that was in the New York Times last Sunday Jeff Gordinier who wrote the article about us the Vegans Go Glam New York Times article that featured our family he wrote a piece that appeared in the last Sunday's New York Times Tea Magazine it was called

Jung Kwon the Philosopher's Chef and it's about it's about, it's a beautiful, amazing article about this journey that he took to South Korea to kind of immerse himself in what's called Korean temple cuisine. And he went to this monastery and spent time with this Buddhist nun, Buddhist monk, who is revered all over the world for her incredible culinary talent. She makes plant-based meals that are insane. And Jeff went with the chef of La Bernardin, which is perhaps the most famous restaurant in New York City. The chef there is obsessed with this nun, this chef nun, Jung Kwan. And he visits her, I guess, like every year to learn from her. So Jeff goes and

spends a week there with her and eats her food. And he just said it was like transcendent, this amazing experience. But what really I thought was amazing was something that he talked about that had to do with like cravings. Like, you know, this idea that in America or in the Western world, you know, you can find yourself aching for a slice of pizza, right? Like you have that craving. And Korean temple cuisine is rooted in like a principle that is completely opposite to that. The idea that you're not supposed to crave the food, that temple cuisine

is engineered to provoke a different reaction, one that goes back to the Buddhist concept of non-attachment, that you relish it as you eat it, but you should have no urge to stuff your face with another heap of it when you're done. Like when it's done, it's gone. And that was it. And the same way that they make those sand mandalas or what have you, like that creates something beautiful. And the idea is impermanence, right? That it goes away, but it's the relationship with the thing, right? This relationship of non-attachment to enjoy it while you're doing it, but it's the relationship with the thing, right, this relationship of non-attachment to enjoy it while you're doing it, but to not get into that fixation or obsessiveness or craving kind of habit that is like certainly my second nature with so many things.

It's certainly, you know, it's certainly greedy. It's a form of greed and it's a form of gluttony. Well, it's covetous. Right, when you have that kind of craving and you know the same way that i talk about preparing food and in a spiritual manner is it is like art it's like you prepare it and then it's destroyed it's completely gone it no longer exists and so you know it's funny as i've heard sorry i don't want to interrupt but i have to tell us one quick thing sorry i can I can't remember where it was. It was, I think it was a podcast interview.

I don't remember what it was, but it was like, if you think about like using that analogy of like the sand mandala and then, and then applying that to food, like a great chef makes something that's so beautiful that you're like, you don't even want to eat it because it's so amazing. But that's part of the bargain, right? Like they're doing that knowing that not only are you going to destroy it, but you're going to literally turn it into shit. It literally will be your body will turn that beautiful thing into crap.

Well, yes, I guess that is the ultimate. But also your body will actually have a relationship with that. But also your body will actually have a relationship with that. So kind of a higher way to look at it is that your body is having like a symbiotic relationship with that element as it integrates it and takes what it needs and discards the rest. Well, it literally goes into your body. Like a painting you observe or a song you hear, but this literally goes inside of you. Right. Yes, that's true. I mean, but sound waves go inside of you.

I think we just are not really aware of that. So there's probably more on the frontier of exploring energy and thoughts are things and images are things. So I think I always say that, you know, in a few years they're going to say, and they used to watch violent television and they didn't know any that, you know, in a few years, they're going to say and they used to watch violent television, and they didn't know any better, you know, so thoughts and, and, and music and images also go into your body. But yes, this food actually enters your mouth and goes through your digestive tract and becomes, you know, interacts with your microbiome and, you know, becomes you probably more you than the human part of you. So the article that Jeff wrote was just incredibly beautiful. The photographs are extraordinary. And yeah, it gives, I mean, for me, it's inspiring to look at it as, you know, really sort of elevating the perspective of serving cuisine as spiritual practice.

So from, he talked about from the person that's eating its perspective, but also from the perspective of that she's a Buddhist monk and she's preparing it. She is preparing this in complete service to God. That is how she is preparing this. It's her spiritual practice. It's her spiritual practice. She spends all day working on it. I'm sure. And it's connected to the elements of the earth. I'm certain it has,

you know, a whole flow to it and a whole chi to it in a whole way that it's expressed. So it's quite gorgeous. I hope I get to go there someday. But, you know, I had this experience, this one experience in serving similarly to the way this nun is serving. And it was at a time in my life where, you know, we thought we were losing our house, and I had, you know, no more vision that I was holding for anything. And my friend Sol Ray invited me to come up to Santa Barbara and cook for his Thai yoga retreat. And I was probably the first time in my life I was completely empty.

I was empty of any inclination, any intention, and any vision for my life or for what I was doing with my family. And the only thing that I could do was be completely present in the moment and serve food and prepare and serve food. And I did that with every ounce of my being over that four day retreat. And I had literally people crying in the kitchen after eating, you know, a blueberry cashew cheesecake that I made. And Saul was teasing me, you know, saying like, Srimati, what are you doing? Like, they don't want to go to class, they want to stay with you in the kitchen. And again, it was this really visceral experience of really being fully in service, like 1000% in service with nothing else inside of me. And when you're that empty, the greater energy can channel through you and create something truly miraculous. So I have no doubt

that when people go and spend time with this monk, that they are transformed, and that there is a very, very powerful spiritual transmission that comes through that food. And I bet they are never the same. Yeah, and I think in addition to that, it's kind of a close kin or cousin to the service aspect of it is doing it for the love of it and just being in it for no, like not for any external purpose other than making the most beautiful thing that you can and pouring all of yourself into it

with everything that you have, right? So she's doing her thing in this remote, you know, section of South Korea. She didn't write a cookbook. She doesn't have a restaurant. Like she doesn't have a publicist. Like nobody knows what's going on, right? She's just doing this in basically in isolation. And it says in the article, like sometimes she's just cooking for two other nuns or a couple other people that are in the monastery. Now, it's a cultural thing in South Korea, there are these other monasteries, and there's this tradition of cuisine in these places. So it's a thing, right? People go to these monasteries to enjoy this food. But it's not really, from what I understand, it's not like open to the public or anything like that. It's like,

you have to kind of know, right, what's going on with her. And so she's not like open to the public or anything like that it's like you have to kind of know right what's going on with her and so she's not doing it to attract attention to herself but just by being so devoted in this practice she becomes like this magnet and the world comes to her right so the chef of laburnadan gets on a plane from new york city and travels to see her to like sit at her feet and learn, right? Like that's an amazing, that's like a truly powerful thing. Well, she's a spiritual master of sorts, and she needs nothing from him. She doesn't care. She has no need.

She has no need for this press. She doesn't care. It's just like, oh, the wind blew, so the guy's there, you know? And that's a really powerful place to be, to not have that attachment. But, you know, with her living this monastic life and having chosen this way of walking in the world, of being in the world, it's really beautiful, very inspiring, and a lovely, beautiful way to connect to divinity. Yeah. I told Jeff, I was like, I got to get her on the podcast. He gave me some contact information.

Like, I was kind of half joking. Right. You know, I was like, oh, she should be great. And he actually gave me, and he's like, she's probably getting slammed with interview requests right now. Like, he took me seriously. Do you think she would come on? I'm going to, like, fly to South Korea.

Well, I think that guy from La Bernardin has brought her out to New York for fundraisers for the monster or something like that and he might be doing that again. But, you know, because of this article

now suddenly everybody, you know, she's on everybody's radar. It's a different thing now. Interesting to see. But of course, if an opportunity arose where I could see

if I could make it happen, that would be a beautiful conversation I would think. Maybe she'll cook for us. Yeah, if she speaks English, I don't know. Doesn't even matter. Yeah, I think she does. Anyway. All right. Well, all right. So just to bring it back, like the this question was really about

transcending the kind of just surface level weight loss aspect of the wellness journey and refocusing on the emotional aspect of it, of like healing the underlying emotions or pain that kind of maybe led to some unhealthy behavior patterns and using that as the launching pad to reset your trajectory. Yeah, and understanding that we are whole beings, many different parts of ourselves. So you have physical health, you

have emotional health, you have spiritual health. So all of it is relevant, and none of it can be excluded. It's like cutting off a part of your body and pretending it didn't exist. So I always say that, you know, the human being integrated in body, mind, and spirit is the ultimate self-sustainable ecosystem. That is the new green. That is to be really green, is to be fully contained and fully integrated with all of your bodies, not just physical, not just spiritual, not just emotional, but all together as one. but all together as one. So it can't, it's not like, you know, oh, you know, I'll get to meditation someday, or I'm not really into meditation, you know, it's, it's just as important as the other things. Or I'll get to meditation once I master, like, I get, I lose, when I lose 20 pounds, then I'll turn to the meditation part of it. Right. And, you know, a little bit of, you know,

mild frustration that I keep hearing again and again in the modern world is, you know, oh, well, the people aren't, you know, they're just not ready for that yet. But that's just, you know, people are the same. We're all human beings. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. We were designed ready for it. We're just, we have our head in the wrong place. And so it's not really extraordinary to have a spiritual experience. It's really quite ordinary. It's quite logical. It's quite, you know, it's absolutely true. And each one of us is completely different. But I just I don't feel like, you know, making it that it's all about the diet is, is intelligent. So what should come first? So if somebody's listening to this and they're like, I'm on your page, but tell me where to begin. Well, what should come first is, again,

what we're saying is to do these things simultaneously. So not to take care of one part of your health while excluding or ignoring another part. So I think it happens all together. It comes with eating healthier foods, starting a meditation practice, starting to move your body, and starting to connect with some of those skeletons or dark moments or emotional traumas that possibly you haven't looked at for a while. And maybe you need to take those out and have a look at them. Maybe it's through journaling to begin with.

Or therapy. Yeah, therapy or communication. But above all, I mean, meditation every day. Meditation, meditation, meditation. So find a practice that feels good to you or one that you can begin with. Again, my meditation practice is a 30 minute guided meditation. I really, really recommend it because it is a humming practice. Starts off with an active meditation, which actually helps to activate energy that's stagnant in your heart and actually will start to clear that immediately.

And in the beginning stages of practicing this meditation, you may have a lot of tears. You may have emotion that comes out. You may cough. Uh, you may even smell an odor, uh, but that's okay. Just keep humming. It doesn't matter. Don't attach to the story and allow this frequency to clear your emotional body so that you can start to connect with yourself. And the thing that stops one from meditation, the greatest obstacle to meditation is emotional trauma. So that is even more than physical, not being able to sit still. But emotional trauma is the greatest obstacle to experiencing meditation because it's that fear of not wanting to go through the emotion. Yeah, it's that emotional trauma that prevents you from wanting to entertain the prospect of meditating to begin with because it's so terrifying to think that that might make you confront that thing. because it's so terrifying to think that that might make you confront that thing.

In the recovery context, part of the step work that you do in 12-step is doing a moral inventory. It's one of the steps, step four. And an aspect of that is to kind of, you have to go through, like you have to write down all your resentments, and it's kind of a process, right? And this is a task or an assignment where a lot of people in recovery, like they just peter out because they don't wanna actually face it. So they'll hem and they'll haw

and they won't actually do this work because you do have to confront these things. And if you think about it, like, well, who are the people that you resent? You have to do a sexual inventory, this moral inventory, this inventory of your resentments and your fears. And it's like, well, I resent this, I resent that. And you figure out like, well, I resent like everybody, you know, like, but it's the one, like what a, what a sponsor

said to me, my first sponsor said to me is like, yeah, you, you have all these resentments, but what's the one that you're really afraid to write down and talk to me about? Like, what's the one that's so dark and that you're so ashamed of that you don't even, like, you can't even bring yourself to like, that'll be the one that you're gonna leave off this. You'll do all the ones that you don't really care about,

but that one that like, you're like, yeah, I'll talk about all these, but I won't talk about that. That's the one you need to look at. Because that's the one that if you can work through it, is gonna set you free.

This dovetails nicely into the subsequent episode to this. The one that I'm going to put up on Sunday night is with Gabor Mate. I can't, it's Hungarian. He told me, you put the emphasis on the first syllable. Gabor Mate. Mate. And he's a world-renowned expert in addiction. He has some very interesting and counterintuitive ideas about the origins of addiction and how to deal with it. early childhood development issues, you know, stuff that happens to you very young that kind of set in motion behavior patterns that manifest into addictive patterns later in life. So we're going to get into that with him, but it's kind of similar to what we're talking about right now. These pains that start as tiny little grains of sand and fester or fertilize over the years turn into things that become very dark and powerful and really drive decisions that we make in unhealthy ways and kind of shadow our relationship with ourselves,

with other people, with food, with behavior patterns, with television, with whatever it is, gambling, sex, what have you. So that's going to be a really interesting conversation, but it's similar. It's basically similar to what you're saying right now. It's powerful. It is. Okay, cool. So one more thing that I want to talk about in this episode.

Do you have something you're going to tell me? Something surprising? No, that I love you. Hi, babe. Thank you for my birthday. No, I thought you were're gonna tell me like some other demon or something oh really oh no no well we're traveling right so we've been in all these cities on this like whirlwind situation so we were in we were in basel candor and uh frankfurt berlin

freiburg berlin paris and we're going to boston next weekend to speak at the veg fest in just two days i go home for a couple days like five, and then I get on a plane again. I'm flying to Beirut. I'm going to run the marathon there. Then I come back for like a week and then I'm going to be in Atlanta and Indiana and Miami. So there's like a ridiculous amount of travel. And so the question always comes up, you know, how do you maintain a plant-based diet when

you're on the road? And we have some tips and some tools that we can relate really quickly. I mean, on this trip, just to relate our experience, I don't think it would be really that fair or informative because we were really taken care of. We had people that were hosting us and helping us to make the best decisions. But I think anybody who, like if you're a business traveler or you're on the road quite a bit, it's true. It can become challenging. Like how do you maintain this way of eating when you're away from your own kitchen and your routines and your practices? And I think the short answer is that you're not going to be able to do it perfectly, but there are some things that you can do to try to do your best when you're away from home.

Yeah, I mean, one thing for me that's been key, and this is maybe a small thing, but it's important to me. I like tea. I like to drink tea. It's sort of like a life, a luxury of mine that I enjoy. And the problem is, is that I like my tea with milk, but I don't drink milk. So I use nut milk. that I like my tea with milk, but I don't drink milk. So I use nut milk. And when I'm traveling,

especially in Europe, it's, you know, at a restaurant or just basically when you're out, it's impossible to find anything that's not, you know, dairy. So aside from traveling on the airplane, which is kind of impossible, I love these nut and soy creams that I found in Germany. They're extremely thick. They're so thick. It's amazing what they have created. What's it called? They're different brands, but they're just in a box. They're like in a half box size.

So I found like a pint size nut milk. Like I had a cashew one, and I had a soy one. But I was able to just put it in my backpack and carry it with me. So we arrived here in Paris at the hotel. I asked him if he had, you know, a non dairy milk, and he didn't. So I opened my suitcase and came out with my nut milk, and I was able to enjoy my tea. So now they're storing my nut milk downstairs in the kitchen. And I've been able to have that.

So, I mean, that seems like a little one, but it's a big one to me because it's something that I enjoy and I would like to have. So that's been a great discovery. Right. Well, I mean, I suppose an analog to that would be if you're traveling somewhere where you're not sure you're going to be able to buy almond milk or coconut milk or soy milk or whatever, just buy a box of it. You know, they store it. It doesn't have to be refrigerated until it's opened, right? So it can store on the shelf. So you can buy those boxes and you can pack it in your luggage or just have one with you.

So if you're going somewhere where maybe that's not going to be at the grocery store, at least you have that. And I think that that is applicable to all kinds of other things, right? If you're going to go on an airplane, like don't, don't like wait until you get to the airport to decide what it is that you're going to eat, you know, for the next five hours or however long your flight is like bring, you know, take the time to prepare a couple things to bring on the plane with you. Like whether it's, you know, a little salad or some nuts or snacks, depending on how long

your flight is, something that you like to eat so that you're not going to become starving and then make a bad choice. Right, and you can't take the liquid on the airplane, so this is just food. Right, so that won't work for that. Yeah, just for food. Yeah, I mean, we do that. And again, it's sort of like it's a mix.

Sometimes they have stuff that you can sort of make do with, and then other times they don't have anything that's even remotely close. Right. I mean, it depends on the airport that you're flying out of and all kinds of variables. Like I know if I'm, if I'm flying American Airlines out of LAX, there's a real food daily in that terminal. Like I can get a green juice and make, you know, some kind of amazing plant based sandwich and bring it on the plane with me. But, you know, you can't rely on that. So when you're in a situation where it's not, where it's unpredictable, it's better to just plan ahead. So, you know, go to the store and buy a bunch of snacks and put it in your carry on bag is one I mean, duh, it's like elementary, right?

Yeah. But in terms of the destination where you're arriving, you know, take 15 minutes before you go on that trip to go online, you know, just Google and research where the restaurants are, get the happy cow app for your phone, which tells you where all the vegan and vegetarian restaurants are, no matter where you are in the world, try to identify where the natural food markets are, see what their proximate location is to wherever you're staying. Another great rule of thumb is when at all possible, try to make sure if you're staying in a hotel, try to get one of those hotels that has a little kitchenette. And perhaps you can go directly from the airport to the natural food markets before going to your hotel to check in, pick up a few

things that will be kind of essentials to have in the event that you can't get to a restaurant that's going to serve your needs. You can make something in your hotel or at least have some healthy snacks or get the almond milk or what have you so that you have your kind of bases covered for emergency situations. Yeah. And also one thing that would be extremely helpful is if you could find a way to arrange a blender at your at your destination, you know, be easier in Airbnb situations, obviously, but in some of the hotels that have, you know, kitchenette, you know, maybe asking, inquiring and seeing if you can get a blender would be good. The one thing that I have noticed is, you know, not every place has that sort of extra kick of nutrition that we like to have on a daily basis, like chia seeds, like hemp seeds, like cacao powder, like goji berries. Those are all four of those things

would be, sometimes I like to just travel with small packets of those, not a huge quantity, but something that I could add in. You know, I was just at this cafe down the street in Paris, it's called Hope Cafe. It's really sweet little cafe and they have a lot of vegan alternatives and we've eaten there twice already however you know their smoothies are not there like their smoothies have like apple juice cacao powder and soy milk or something like that so again if i i and i asked her you know do you have chia seeds do you have hemp seeds and they don't have them so if you know having those extra things to sprinkle on your oatmeal you know you can always get oatmeal in almost any hotel in any place in the world. And I still maintain that that is the best Ayurvedic morning meal. It is nourishing. It stops your adrenals from being fried, balances you. It's extremely good. And that's across the board for everyone.

you. It's extremely good. And that's across the board for everyone. You don't need to eat more than a fistful. But this is the morning porridge recipe that I have in the plant power way. So if you travel, you can bring the extras that you throw on top of the cereal or the oatmeal, which will make just ordinary oatmeal a superfood powerhouse meal. Yeah. And in the United States, like my sort of default, like worst case scenario situation is Chipotle. Like if you're going, if you're anywhere near like a major city in the United States, and even in Europe, we saw one and we went to one in Frankfurt, there's generally going to be a Chipotle nearby and you can go and you can get a bowl with rice and beans and, you know, guacamole and salsa or make a burrito or something like that. And there you go. Boom. Like you have a, you know, satisfying plant-based meal available

to you. Yeah. Very easy. And non-GMO. Yeah. Non-GMO GMO is pretty cool. And filling, you know what I mean? So you don't have to starve and eat lettuce or when you go to some restaurant where they don't know how to make plant based stuff, and you end up with something that you know, isn't really gonna hit the spot for you. You know, Chipotle works, it does. So there's no reason to not do that. That always fills the gap for me. But I think it's just using your basic common sense and just just saying I'm going to take 10 or 15 minutes to plan ahead of time before this trip to just inquire and look into what's available, where I'm going. You know, maybe you have friends there. Maybe there's a Facebook community, a vegan Facebook community for that city where people

communicate about what the best options are. Like if you just take the time to look into it because of the internet, like so many of these issues can be resolved. So I don't think it's like fair to be like, well, I travel all the time and it's just hard and I can't do it. Like that's just lazy. No, you can do it. And it takes just a couple emails

and a couple actions. It's not like hours of time. You know what I mean? It's just having a forethought to go, oh, let me just make sure I look into this before I go so I know what I'm getting into. Yeah, definitely. You can make it work.

I mean, I've been traveling constantly. I've gone to all kinds of crazy places. And it doesn't always end up being the ultimate meal that you're looking for. But I'm telling you that you can always make it work one way or the other. Yeah, we had some great Ayurvedic Indian food outside of Frankfurt, and we've had just really pretty amazing food, actually.

Cool. Well, all right. I think we did it. That's it? Yeah. No other questions? Well, there's plenty of other questions, but those can wait for another day. Okay, great.

You know, we're in Paris, so I would like to be able to go outside and enjoy it. Do you guys think he deserves it to go out in Paris? We should do that. Maybe we should do that. Today's supposed to be like a day off, and later tonight I'm going to be publishing this podcast. I'm going to be working later, so I would like to go get a little daylight here.

So everyone, after this goes up, make sure to follow my Instagram because I'm going to post about 20 pictures. I'm going to bleed the feed. You're not supposed to bleed the feed. I'm going to post about you know 20 pictures I'm going to bleed the feed with uh you're not supposed to bleed the I'm going to I don't care I'm going to post all these pictures from Lapege because I want to share what he's doing amazing work that Alan is doing so anyway so follow me at Shri Mati on Instagram and are you gonna take us out with a song today yeah i am uh i think i'm gonna take you out with aditya the aditya mantra oh wow uh because of the emotional inner work yeah and the theme of emotional inner work it'll put you into a trance like state though you better not be driving a car listening to don't drive't drive your car. No, you'll be fine. It's fine. I think it's a groovy and cool song.

This mantra is from the Ramayana, which is a thousands-of-year-old Indian sacred text. the hero Rama at his deepest, darkest point of evil, where he needs all the help that he can get to transcend and rise up out of his adversarial challenge, which is the form of a very long raging war. So anyway, it's What does that translate into? Let's see if I can remember. It's basically, I can't say right now, I can give it to you in the show notes just because it's been so long. I wasn't even sure I could say that mantra. It just came.

Are you sure? So you're going to have to work tonight too. You're going to get that for me. Oh, it's easy. I'll remember. I just have to get into the present in a moment. All right. Awesome.

Cool. Well, that's it. Thanks, you guys, for taking this ride with us today. Super fun. What do I got for you? How do we leave this? How do we end this? How do we end this? Everybody should visit our restaurant, super fun. What do I got for you? How do we leave this? How do we end this? Everybody should visit our restaurant, Joy Cafe in Westlake Village,

if you're in the LA area. Organic, plant-based, GMO-free, gluten-free. Amazing little spot that we're partnered in, that our friends Joy and Nick run, and we love it. We eat there all the time when we're partnered in that our friends joy and nick run and we love it we eat there all the time when we're in town you can find me there at lunchtime quite often but right now we're out of town but if you happen to be uh if you live in la or if your travels take you there please check it out and also check out the karma baker our other partner it's a vegan and gluten-free bakery that's also on westlake village and as i always, this podcast is an amazing vehicle for having a global communication and creating community that is detached from location.

And it has enriched my life and just been – it's my heart. I love it. It's been a beautiful experience. But it's also really cool to invest in your local community and try to help people there. And that's what Karma Baker and Joy Cafe are all about. It feels really good to be part of, you know, putting roots into the community and trying to help people there make transformations in their own lives by providing them with cool, healthy options. Right. So that's nice. providing them with cool, healthy options, right? So that's nice. For all your plant power needs, go to richroll.com. We've got all kinds of good stuff for you there,

like Julie was talking about today, her meditation program. We have a few nutritional products. We've got signed copies of the Plant Power Way and Finding Ultra. We have sticker packs. We have fine art prints. We have 100% organic cotton garments, all kinds of cool stuff. Basically everything that you want and need to take your health to the next level. Right, Julie Pyatt? That's right, Rich Roll. Keep sending in the questions for future Q&A podcasts to info at richroll.com.

We have a couple online courses at mindbodygreen.com, The Art of Living with Purpose, and The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. For more information on those, we're really proud of them. Go to mindbodygreen.com and click on Video Courses. And thanks for supporting the show, you guys, for telling your friends, for taking this journey with us, for being part of this amazing global community. We love you, and I can't wait to just continue going further,

pushing harder, getting better guests. Truly touched to meet so many of you in Europe. So thanks so much for coming out and for your beautiful hearts and your amazing warm wishes. And just, we feel truly, truly blessed by all of you. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

And tune in in a couple of days to hear my conversation with gabor mate yes all right peace plants namaste اومدید یا ردایم پنیم سر و شطروب به ناشنم جای و خم ج پام نیتیم اکشه یا پرمام شیوه شیوه Shiva Shiva

Oh Maditya Pradayam Duryam Sarva Shatru Thank you. Japa Mithyam Akshaya Paramah Shiva Shiva Shiva Om Aditya

Pradayam Kuyam Sarvasatru Vinashanam Sava Shatru Ve Na Shanam Chaya Vakham Japa Mithyam Akshayam paramam shivohu Shivohu Shalom. Thank you. Shivo Shivo Shivo Shalom. Shri Ramakrishna Shiva Shiva Satsang with Mooji Thank you. Om Aditya Vrdayam

Sambha Satguru Vrdayam Vrdayam Shabbat shalom. Panama Chihuahua Chihuahua Thank you.